


Cupboard Children

by shsldespair



Category: Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, POV Alternating, Retrospective, Sibling Bonding, Twilight syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:20:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shsldespair/pseuds/shsldespair
Summary: Natsumi Kuzuryuu is not technically Pekoyama's charge, but the grief hits just as hard. It's unbefitting of a tool.





	Cupboard Children

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the DULL START! zine.
> 
> TW for child abuse, emetophobia (not graphic), bug eating.

You are eight years old and bile burns in the back of your throat, a physical rejection the gruesome sight in front of you. This is the first time you have been alone with a dead body. You will not have another reaction this visceral until years later, when the body is Natsumi Kuzuryuu's and you've long since forgotten how this feels.

It is your job not to break.

* * *

The lighting of the music room is dim, but it’s enough to see what’s happened. The dark blood is congealing in her hair, dripping out her mouth, splattering her shirt. It’s blatantly obvious she’s dead, but if it wasn’t… well, Peko Pekoyama knows what a body looks like. There’s a certain way the joints settle, a way the muscles stiffen and then droop that gives it away. She would say it’s a poor imitation of life, but that would imply death  _ cares  _ enough to pretend, which is laughably naive. Death doesn’t care about anything. It is cold and impassive as the blade in her hands, as she’s supposed to be, as the Young Mistress’s body is, slumped on the floor in front of her.

She turns around and exits the room, forcing air in and out of her lungs mechanically. The Young Master had already told her what had happened. Well, he screamed at it her, raged at the world that his little sister is fucking dead, someone bashed her god damn skull in, he’ll kill the motherfucker, he’ll kill them dead, they’d better watch their fucking back because he’ll beat their head in. She knew what to expect in an intellectual sort of way, but there was a cold finality to seeing it herself that still caught her off guard. That’s why she had to do it.

Having seen enough, she walks back through the door feeling a familiar itch in her fingertips. It’s the one where she needs to go to the dojo and swing around a sword, not because she really needs the practice (or maybe she does if the Young Mistress is dead, because it still feels like a personal failure even though Natsumi was never technically her responsibility) but because it’s the only place where it’s acceptable to scream and hit things until you pass out. It’s safe there because the only thing she’ll ever kill is a dummy and the only thing that hits back is her sensei, sometimes, who no longer has the requisite skill to break her bones.

It’s safe there. Pekoyama ignores the itch. She does not believe she deserves the relief.

* * *

You are six years old. You are waiting silently by the door while the family eats dinner. You are hungry, but you’ll have your dinner once they’ve finished. It shouldn’t be too long. The adults haven’t eaten much, and the silence is tense. Fuyuhiko is piling food into his mouth as fast as his chopsticks can move between his plate and his face. You try not to look at the food, because you are hungry enough as it is and even at this age you know your dinner won’t be half as nice. You’ll get nowhere staring at things you can’t have. The adults are bickering. Fuyuhiko finishes his plate before anyone else has even touched half of it and hurriedly asks to be excused. His father breaks the tension by exploding into a flurry of expletives, of “No you can’t fucking be excused, the rest of us are still eating, don’t be god damn rude,” of calling him selfish, of anything he can think of to insult a small child before his wife interrupts him by throwing a plate at his head. The adults scream at each other with all the intensity they’ve been waiting for an excuse to let out.

You grab Fuyuhiko and Natsumi’s wrists, small enough to fit into even your child-sized hands, and run. You’ll be out long before the guns come out. If you’re lucky, you’ll be out before the grown-ups even notice you’ve taken their children and ran. They’ll be angry at the three of you for leaving, but none of you will be shot, which is what you’re trying to prevent by doing this. You’ve learned to weigh your options.

You don’t stop running until you reach the antique wardrobe in the guest room down the hall, the one with the exactly child-sized compartment underneath that you’re supposed to put shoes in. The Kuzuryuu family used to fill it with junk, but you’ve hidden it in various spots around the house, all scattered so no one realizes what you’ve done, and left the space free for three small, scared children. You herd the two siblings into the cabinet, follow after them, and close the door, contorting your tiny bodies to fit in the cramped space. Natsumi might be crying, it’s hard to tell in the pitch black darkness, but the way her shoulders move against you make you think she is. You hold her hand even though it twists your arm to an awkward, painful angle, because you’re afraid too and comforting her is a good way to steal some comfort for yourself. This is your panic room, your safe space. You built it because it fits three children and a shinai and their parents will never find you there, not in a million years. You can stay here with them until the fight is over and the urge to beat their children has passed and no one will be the wiser.

Eventually, the three of you crawl out and sneak back to your futons together. Fuyuhiko doesn’t let you sleep in his bedroom anymore, so you sit cross-legged on the floor and keep watch outside the door. You last for all of an hour before you involuntarily nod off yourself, still sitting propped up by your child-sized shinai.

* * *

You are eight years old. The three of you no longer fit, so you stand guard outside with your jaw set hard as stone. You aren’t sure what you’ll do, exactly, if they find you here. His parents will kill you if you raise a hand against them, even in protection of their son, and you aren’t sure if you’re brave enough yet to die.

Within six months, they will bicker too much to stuff themselves in a cabinet together, and you will all need to learn to fight back.

* * *

Try as she might, Pekoyama’s straight backed, steel posture is fallible. She’s walking down the hall, away from the music room, but there’s too much happening in her head, her muscles need to move, she’s trained herself out of thoughts and feelings but everything she’s ever held inside is boiling over. She needs to move. It’s all she knows how to do. She moves. She slams her fist into the wall. A lifetime of rage- Pekoyama’s stunted, worthless life? Natsumi’s cut short?- propels her muscles forward. Her knuckles rip through the plaster of the wall. She’s stronger than this building, at least. The wall gets its revenge, though, in the form of something sharp in the wall that slices her hand open across the knuckle. Blood, hot and wet, drips down her fingers, down the wall. She is still, breathing hard in the aftershock of the blow. Whatever tore open her skin is still against the wound, cutting painfully, but she can’t move. She just stands there, frozen by the electricity of the unnecessary motion, buzzing from it.

Passive and involuntary as it is, the act of bleeding infuriates her. This body is useless. She is useless. Right now, she is the sum of all these unnecessary traits, this grief, this rage, it shouldn’t be here. Natsumi wasn’t her responsibility. This isn’t her fault. She won’t be punished for it, or at least she shouldn’t be, and it won’t jeopardize her ability to protect the Young Master. She should move on. Instead, she stands still, unkempt emotion coursing through her veins with each maddening heartbeat, with her fist bleeding in a wall.

* * *

The three of you have an agreement. Well, no, “understanding” is a better word for it, as it was never actually agreed upon or even really discussed. All three of you know that if either Kuzuryuu sibling tells you to do something, you cannot refuse. However, Natsumi does not own you, her brother does, so his words will always supersede hers. By the time you’re out of grade school, you’ve perfected this hierarchy. Natsumi will tell you to do something stupid, dangerous, or otherwise unpleasant. You will ask the Young Master for permission to complete the task. He will tell you not to. You cannot refuse her, but she cannot force your hand. That’s why she pushes so hard.

You’re walking in the garden one day, getting some air after a grueling session with your sensei, when she intercepts you. It’s been raining. The pavement is still damp and the air smells clean. She points to a thick, soggy worm drowning at your feet.

“Eat it, Peko.”

It’s a part of the game. You know it is. Her brother must be nearby or she wouldn’t have asked. She’s smirking, testing what it feels like to twist her cherubic face into cruelty, but you aren’t impressed. You’re just… tired. You’re so tired. You’ve been swinging this sword all day. Your arms are lead, your body is bruised. You know it’s part of the training, that you’re supposed to be able to beat him someday and that’s why he’s so hard on you, but some selfish part of you still wants to cry at the unfairness of a grown man fighting full strength against a little girl. You’re tired. Your bones are tired. Too tired to invoke your loophole. This worm will be far down on the list of today’s unpleasantness.

You crouch down, pick it up between your fingers. It’s still alive somehow, despite how waterlogged it is. You stare her dead in the eye, completely unblinking, and swallow it whole, feeling it’s fat, slimy wriggling body travel all the way down your throat and settle in your stomach. A wave of nausea passes through your body and you choke it back as deftly as you would any other emotion. You’re learning well, see?

She runs away crying. Her power has consequences.

You go inside.

* * *

After too long standing there (it may have only been a moment), Pekoyama extradites her hand from the wall. Her blood has dripped down the wall in long, dark streaks. Someone will have to clean that up, probably the same person that will remove the Young Mistress’s blood from the walls and floor of the music room. They may even be the one to bring her body to the morgue. It’s not Pekoyama’s problem.

She takes one more human moment to breathe out a sigh and wrap her hand with the bottom hem of her shirt. She’ll need to get this wrapped sooner rather than later. It’s time to move on.


End file.
